With apologies to the Bard, and the halfway point of summer at hand, I can’t help thinking ahead to the November elections and the legislative season beyond. I thoroughly enjoyed an extended vacation in the Carolinas, and hope you all are having as carefree a summer as gasoline prices and other economic realities permit.

The new school year is now almost underway. Close on the heels of opening day comes high season for the political among us—nationally, statewide, and locally. A perfect time to begin thinking seriously again about what may be ahead for public school funding in Connecticut.

Why now instead of January when the Governor and a new legislature start to fashion our next biennial budget? It’s simple really. Whether or not we count ourselves as political activists, the next few months will afford most of us some opportunity to communicate to those seeking seats in the new state legislature the issues that matter most to us.

You get to pick your poison so to speak—health care, energy and heating assistance (the apparent flavor of the week in Hartford), local tax relief, or school funding—just to name a few.

My bandwagon—as you may have gathered if you have been a follower of earlier postings on this site—actually combines two of the above. School funding and local property tax relief. I connect the two because the state’s primary school funding program—Education Cost Sharing (ECS)—is in a position to address both.

The ECS reforms adopted in 2007 will be about 25% implemented going into the 2009-2011 biennium. This means that about $750 million of the $1 billion target increase is still on the table.

It seems to me that paying out at least half ($375 million) of the outstanding amount in the next biennium—even if the $1.4 billion Rainy Day Fund needs to be tapped to do it—will completely cover many towns education budget increases over that period. Further it may allow some towns to use any funds in excess of the amount needed to cover education costs for permanent tax relief. And since education comprises 50 to 70% of total local spending in all but a handful of the state’s larger cities, any significant state increase in aid reduces the pressure on local tax sources.

By all means, pursue the issues most important to you with your candidates in September and October. But if you agree with me that local tax relief through substantial and sustained state education funding is a top priority, then you owe it to yourself to make sure that legislators to be know that before the first Tuesday in November.